Wonderwall
by ElfieWrites
Summary: Vague narrative about Helga changing. Arnold stops her, but why?


Author's note: I think it's too vague and therefore just turns out stupid, but, eh. Based off of the Oasis song "Wonderwall". 

----- 

Rumor was flying. No, it was burning through the mass of kids like wildfire. Soon everyone knew, and was excited for, The Change. 

It was so capitalized because it was something every kid had once hoped for, but never expected, and now didn't know what to do about. Then someone had pointed out that The Change, if it actually occurred, left them an opportunity. An opportunity for revenge. That idea, too, had caught on quickly. These kids were like dry bush from a two-year draught, and all of the same variety. 

Except for one boy. The green of his mind resisted the tempting flames. First, he was reluctant to accept The Change. He simply didn't think it possible. Why in the world would Helga G. Pataki change? Why would she give up that bully persona she had fought so hard to build and maintain all these six years? Sure, the wall was hard and sharp and daunting, the wall she had built around herself in the likeness of a bully. He himself had found a crack here and there, that let him peek through at the goodness that lay inside, but never long enough to be sure. Because he ran into that wall far more often than he saw a fissure in it. Enough to almost forget there was something behind that wall, because sometimes it seemed like he didn't just run into it - it purposefully ran into him. 

Then he saw some of the preliminary changes himself. He found himself looking wide-eyed behind him when the lunch bell had rang, that first day of The Change, when not one spitball had pelted him in the back of the head. All morning until lunch! The first usually came within an hour of school starting. He almost missed it. Not that he missed being spitballed, he just missed what had become part of regular, normal routine. 

He did see Helga change, and talked to Phoebe about it, and wondered about it. But as his friends all jumped at the chance for revenge, he balked. They all planned to pay Helga back every biting insult in turn. Every wrong each kid felt she had committed upon his or her life, that kid hoped to find some suitably equal and satisfying revengeful deed for. Except for Phoebe, her strangely devoted best friend, and him. 

Something truly great in Helga's life must have happened for her to lose her fiery spirit so suddenly. But what that something was, Phoebe couldn't tell him. She didn't know herself. 

He knew that change was inevitable. Everyone he knew now would change as they grew up. But he couldn't see how The Change fit into that. This wasn't just a girl maturing. This was somebody's fire being blown out. True, being a bully had never been admirable, but that unique, strong, independent spirit hadn't been hateful. It just seemed that Helga never knew how to deal with it except to build up that forceful wall, the one he so often wondered at. So often he had hoped to really see through those cracks, see what was inside and coax it to come out and show itself. Sometimes he thought, for brief moments, a bit of it had come out. Never long enough, for Helga would soon notice and shove it back behind that wall. 

Now he just didn't know what to do. That wall was crumbling, that spirit was being muffled, and whatever had been shining inside of Helga would be crushed under the attack of her classmates. Without her wall, she was left completely vulnerable to whatever nasty things all of them had in mind for her. She would be swept away. He just knew this, and dreaded it. But he didn't know what to say. 

He was sure nobody felt this way besides himself. He would miss the old Helga. Sure, he wanted her to change. He just wanted to her to change like everyone else, gradually, and without it destroying herself. All that was Helga G. Pataki would be lost this way. He wanted to save her from that fate, and help her. He knew something was wrong, and he hated to see people suffer. Even people who had once made him suffer. But how could he tell her all of this? That he cared about her despite her years of cruelty. That he knew that cruelty was just a part of the wall she had built up. That he felt he was like some brave explorer who found a lost temple full of treasure, and had only to scale that daunting wall to find true satisfaction. That all he really wanted was to find that Helga on the other side of the wall and help her, not seek revenge on her. 

So this nagging feeling followed him to her house, just two days before The Revenge was to begin, as the kids had all decided upon. He knocked on the door, and a downcast Helga opened it a few moments later. "Arnold?" she asked in a surprised, but mild, voice. 

"Can I come in?" he asked. She nodded and he followed her inside. They sat and talked for a long time, Arnold warning Helga about what the kids had planned for her, and as much as he could say about how he felt about everything, as well as he could, and what to do about it. "Please don't change now Helga, not like this. I don't want you to," he told her. "Whatever it is that's wrong, just know you can talk to me about it, okay?" 

All that the kids knew the next day in school was that spitballs flew as fiercely as they ever had, and threats were made, and not a single one was aimed at Helga. Many a "Crimeny!" and "Doy!" was heard, and The Revenge was deserted quickly. No kid understood just what had happened, except a smiling Arnold and Phoebe, who only knew that her friend was back to normal with the help of some unnamed counselor. 

Arnold smiled because he had seen that inner Helga, and talked with her. He had helped her put that wonderwall back up. He knew that meant more insults and shoves, but they were half for show now, and held less acid than before. He had saved Helga Pataki from losing herself somehow, and that was enough. That wonderwall wasn't as menacing as it once was, and he knew it would be worth withstanding its force just for another glimpse of that other Helga. He felt he still had more to say to her, and some premonition told him that one day he would be thankful for saving her. Someday she would return the favor. As far as The Change was concerned, it would come, but slowly and so without those defining capitals. 


End file.
